A cootie key is e.g. a hack saw blade between two contacts, so left or right make contact for as long as you hold it. No automatic dits not even semi-automatic dits. Thus, not a bug. The art of sending CW with a Cootie, invented as the bug later, to prevent glass arm and enable sending of CW all day long without tiring too much, is not an easy one but can be mastered with some practice. I've not attempted it. A newcomer to CW who has also bought a Cootie and is learning to use it. He received some flack for doing so, being told, among other things that a) he should master a straight key first. Well, a Cootie is essentially a straight key side ways, and as easy if not easier to make home brew than a straight key pump, so I don't see why they cannot master the Cootie first. b) he should aim to send machine perfect CW on the Cootie. So I wrote the below for that newcomer to CW but it may contain some things of interest to others:

You've set yourself high standards and that's great. Too many these days aim low and achieve even lower. I can use electronic keyer at higher speeds, straight key at lower speeds and bug at mid range speeds, but I certainly can't use a Cootie, never tried, and probably need to master my bug better as depending on my mood I have several different styles, some or other styles sound like music to some, others like gibberish. What is not a dit is therefore a dah on a bug, makes it easy* to copy for anyone no matter the dahs are any unit (dit) length from 2 or 3 up to 10 or so.

*) Easy except for those who are accustomed only to "perfect international Morse Code" e.g. computer or machine generated. I can achieve that, when I want, on a keyer at certain speeds, and at slow speeds on a straight key, when I want. But I've also sent some American Morse and people cannot even recognise it as CW, though it is faster, but the dahs are only two dit unit lengths, not three, very little difference between a dit and a dah. People listen and think that is an awful operator sending CQ, but it is not, it is just a different standard. Point being, we are lucky with International Morse as the big difference between dit and dah, arbitrary as it is (it could be 2.5 or 3.5 or 4 or 5 units, then we'd be criticising those sending with a 1:3 ratio of dit:dah?!).

"This is essential because it learns you how the code has to sound." Maybe just choice of words and not intended but it does not HAVE to sound perfect UNLESS you want a machine to decode it and even then some static or QRM or QSB and the machine cannot compensate. So please, digital CW to the digitital sub band, and exclusive CW bands are for REAL i.e. human i.e. aurally decoded CW — immaterial if you use a keyboard to send CW what matters is how it is decoded. Non aural CW reception is defined as DCW Digital CW, a growing problem of compatability issues with CW, and belongs in the digital-CW shared sub bands.

The cootie, like the straight key, you can certainly learn to send "perfect CW". On my QRZ page I have a video of "perfect CW" (or as near as) being sent on a keyer, straight key, and bug, so they sound the same. You can no doubt achieve that also with a cootie. But whether you want to, or need to, is another matter.

I liken CW to music, or even the English language. There is Oxford English, but that is only really one particular accent that was taken as "official" English. There is Jamaican patois. Rass bamba blaad claht mi man, wha di rass a goann ere nah? E nehli juks me wid dat nife Rasta! Which only those of us who speak it will understand, and that's cool too. The more off-standard (electro machine music) music you go, e.g. Reggae, Blues, Soul then some will truly appreciate it, while others want Pop or Heavy Metal which to some of us then sounds like noise. Some people love a whole variety of music, others are very particular.

Then there is Jazz, some of it extreme, and I know a Cootie user who sends that style and at first I could not decode it. I found then the key was to relax, let it fly over me, and suddenly it all made sense. The difficulty being "what is not a dit is a dah" doesn't work, as there is no standard dit, and dits and dahs can be any length… compare to handwriting: Courrier Font being Official CW. Narrow Ariel being Official American CW. Comic Sans S being one bug style. But a doctors handwriting on a prescription being a Cootie deliberately not being sent as Times New Roman, may only be decoded by the regular pharmacists.